Before they head to the James Earl Jones Theatre, we caught up with Solea Pfeiffer, Liisi LaFontaine, Ledisi, and Bradley Jaden to learn which musicals are at the top of their list.
Today we catch up with an old friend, Francesca Barletta, who we first spotted as the Queen of Hearts, threatening to chop people’s heads off in Alice in Wonderland, Jr., a Conejo Player…
If you’re a fan of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, you no doubt are aware of the screening at the Sphere in Las Vegas in which the film has been turned into a 360-degree multi-sensory spec…
In a world that is consumed with political correctness and accusations of “wokeness,” Avenue Q, which made its debut at the Conejo Players Theatre June 5, is a musical that shattered Bro…
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” pop culture’s musical seminary about the Biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers, has always been a popular show for community theater,…
In recent years, musicals based on hit motion pictures retrofitted with scores have become increasingly popular, as Broadway producers struggle to get audiences interested in live theatre. M…
Every actor who has ever strode upon a stage has had nightmares of on-stage mishaps: forgotten lines, props that don’t operate properly or are not there at all, and other horror stories. Y…
Musical Theatre Guild, the Los Angeles-based company that produces staged readings of long-forgotten, rarely seen musicals, has done it again with a stellar and highly entertaining productio…
It’s been a while since we checked in with Andrew Metzger, one of our favorite performers, so we were delighted to hear that Andrew was coming to the Hillcrest Center for the Arts to appea…
On Tuesday, December 4, 1956, a chance meeting in a recording studio in Memphis resulted in a landmark event in rock ’n’ roll history. The incident was instigated by Sun Records owner/pr…
5-Star Theatricals’ production of Hairspray, which opened October 10 at the Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks, is the bubbly, effervescent morality tale about civil rights in Baltimore…
In 2013, we saw a performance of West Side Story at Calabasas High School and took note of the young actor Landen Starkman, who was playing the part of A-Rab. Three months later, we saw hi…
As the earliest Broadway musical ever to feature children playing major roles, Oliver! usually bristles with youthful excitement. But despite being marketed as a family-oriented musical, Oli…
The Distinguished Speaker Series kicked off its 28th season with a rare appearance by actress, producer, author, and children's health advocate Goldie Hawn. Over the years we have seen an ex…
Staged readings are an emotional time for a writer of a play or musical. It marks the first time a creation moves from the two dimensions of the written word to the three dimensions of a liv…
In Douglas Carter Beane's 2013 revamping of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical version of the "Cinderella" fairy tale, apparently, the magical transformation of a ragamuffin house ser…
An unprovoked assault on a Black motorist. An unwanted infant buried alive in a garden. Vengeful vigilantes burning down firehouses. A vapid starlet seeks tabloid publicity through the sensa…
The classic 1964 musical Fiddler On the Roof arrives in Thousand Oaks on Thursday, March 9 and prior to opening we had a chat with Mary Beth Webber, who plays the part of Yente in the show. …
On Sunday, March 5, the Conejo Players Theatre will be presenting a staged reading of The Nameless Star, a 1942 play written by Romanian playwright Mihail Sebastian about a chance encounter …
The title of Lucas Hnath's 2013 play is unwieldy. In fact, if it weren't in italics, we weren't sure whether it was a play title or a press release description. A Public Reading of an Unprod…
Long before Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys put the pop into pop musicals, a tuneful score by songsmiths Burt Bacharach and Hal David was inserted into a stage adaptation of Billy Wilder and I.A.…
Halloween is once again upon us and with that, you can expect another visit from the creepy, kooky, and ooky Addams clan, in the 2010 Broadway musical The Addams Family. 5-Star Theatricals u…
When we first saw Jonalyn Saxer, it was 2010. Jonalyn was an eighteen-year-old senior, playing Maria von Trapp in Oak Park High School's performance of The Sound of Music. In my review in th…
Summer is here and what better way to spend the week of the Fourth with a production of The Music Man, Meredith Willson's tribute to small-town America in the early twentieth century. An out…
If you were a five-year-old girl going to see her first musical, Agoura High School's recent semester-ending production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella would be the one to see. With …
America was a different place in 1949 when Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific made its debut. World War II was still fresh in the minds of audiences but Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote …
American Theatre Guild's current national tour of South Pacific brings Rodgers and Hammerstein's most successful musical to Thousand Oaks, a show whose score boasts more hits than any other …
In the 2013 Tony Awards, the big winner was "Kinky Boots," a musical version of a 2005 film whose plot told of a failing shoe factory in Northampton, England that was rejuvenated when it beg…
The life and writings of Emily Dickinson, one of America's most treasured poets, comes vividly to life in the Elite Theatre Company's production of The Belle of Amherst by William Luce…
On February 24, American Theatre Guild's production of Jersey Boys makes a single appearance in Thousand Oaks at the Fred Kavli Theater. COVID forced the canceling of the show twice, first i…
Gerard Alessandrini (Creator, Writer & Director) is a Special Tony Award winner for Excellence in the Theatre. He created, wrote, and directed all 25 editions of Forbidden Broadway…
It's always nice when we see a show that has never been performed in Ventura County so we were looking forward to seeing 5-Star Theatricals' Something Rotten!, the 2015 sendup of Shakespeare…
With the worst of the pandemic hopefully in the rear view mirror, Young Artists Ensemble is back in action with another stellar introduction to children's theatre. Joseph Robinette's The Jun…
When producers of country music decided to try and appeal to pop audiences sixty years ago, the main recipient of this shift to a more accessible sound was Patsy Cline, a rough-and-tumble, t…
It's one of the most common themes found in Broadway musicals: a culturally stagnating town is rejuvenated when an outsider arrives on the scene, affecting everyone in the process. You've se…
After watching Conejo Players' production of "Baby," which plays through November 21 at the company's newly reopened theatre in Thousand Oaks, a better title for the musical might have been …
If you've ever worked in an office, you might be familiar with experiencing the panic of running late for an important meeting for which you are designated to play a key role. That is the pr…
To show you how little importance the plot for the jukebox musical Mamma Mia! is, the printed program lists no scenes from the show, only an alphabetical checklist of the 22 songs inserted i…
In 5-Star Theatricals' current production o Mamma Mia! the role of Sam Carmichael is played by veteran soap opera star Eric Martsolf. Although he's known to his fans mainly for the roles he'…
On October 15, 5-Star Theatricals becomes the next theatre company to emerge from its COVID-induced hibernation with its production of the feel-good musical, Mamma Mia! Playing the central r…
Of all elements of society hit by the pandemic, the one that got hit the hardest was the performing arts. Many theatre companies were forced to close their doors while those that managed to …
Welcome back, regional theatre! For the past 16 months, we've been sporadically seeing a variety of virtual and drive-in plays, musicals, and revues, but it's great to get back to live, in-p…
It's time once again for the annual "Vee-Cee" Awards, in which we honor some of the most memorable performances on Ventura County stages over the course of the past year. Because of the COVI…
In The Revolutionists, Lauren Gunderson's 2017 black comedy about four (in)famous women of the French Revolution, comedy meets tragedy in a fictionalized what-if? premise that brings to mind…
It's hard to believe, but 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, one of the prime community theaters in Ventura County. In 1995, the center's first producti…
An interview with David Krassner, director of Agoura High School's current production of Rent. Krassner uses his experience as an actor on Broadway and in national tours to guide young actor…
Can a play about cancer be uplifting? That's the question posed by Margaret Edson in her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, currently showing at the Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard. The play …
Occasionally, Broadway audiences miss the target. Such is the case with It Shoulda Been You, a musical that somehow lasted less than five months before slinking off into tours and community …
On Wednesday, February 26, Agoura High School's drama department, under the direction of David Krassner, will be staging the high school production of Rent, Jonathan Larson's groundbreaking …
The appeal of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which arrived in Thousand Oaks on February 13 for a four-day run, can be summed up by the comments of an elderly couple leaving the Fred Kav…
Beautiful, the musical that chronicles the life of singer/songwriter Carole King, comes to the Conejo Valley for the first time in American Theatre Guild's national tour. Many performers hav…
